“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.’’
There are those books that are significant and well-timed, worthy of reading because of the social or political moral that they spread. They need to exist. And then there are other books that are eloquent, intense and stimulating- but, rarely, you find one of those books that are both important and beautifully written. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is one of those books.
I could tell you that this book is motivated by the "Black Lives Matter" movement. I could tell you that it rips blatantly into an issue that needed to be ripped into - the killings of vulnerable black people by police forces, as well as racism in the judicial structure. While all of that needs to be said, I feel like I'm doing this book injustice by underlining its sociopolitical prominence over the fact that it's also an incredible, influential and utterly unforgettable novel.
The Hate U Give is about how protagonist Starr manages the repercussion of witnessing her friend Khalil being shot by a cop for doing nothing wrong. Her fear is tangible as she opposes a system that she knows is against her. The book is meant to showcase how the media conveys young black men as guilty until proven otherwise through the perspective of a scared young girl. The relationship dynamics that play alongside the combat for fairness are no less captivating. Thomas neatly portrays intricate, nuanced relationships between all the people in the book, considering the gaps between Starr and her white classmates, but never do the characters get cliche or one-dimensional.
It's wonderful how the book manages to both break your heart and warm it in the space of just a few pages. This book may be raw, authentic, and uncomfortable at times. But being uncomfortable is vital since many of us don’t know how it feels to be anticipated as a menace because of how we look or who we are, and that doesn’t mean that such a mindset doesn’t exist. The book sends out an important message and it is surely worth a read.
by Khushi Desai (9A)
